I was a bit tired after that workout. Not much yardage -- I really can't do more than that in an hour -- but plenty of quality.

I was stupid the other day. I was driving around and left the top down with my swim bag and equipment bag in the car during lunch with a friend. I came back and my equipment bag was gone. Ouch! No idea why they took that and left the backpack. I have extra fins and paddles, but the bungee cordz + parachute + drag sox replacement will be pricey.

By now most of us have heard that prolonged sitting has many adverse health effects. We've also been told that in general working out and then sitting all day does not make the situation much better. This new review article published in The Lancetlooked at the effect of physical activity and sedentary behavior with all-cause mortality. They found that daily sitting time did not have an effect on those in the most active quartile of physical activity. The people in the most active quartile did the equivalent of moderate exercise for an 60-75 minutes per day, everyday. Interestingly, those who sat the least but were also the least active otherwise, had a significantly increased risk of dying. So just being on your feet all day does not give you the same benefit as exercise. Another interesting fact was that regardless of physical activity, 3 or more hours per day of watching television was associated with increased mortality.

I had a terrific weekend at the Austin Speedo Futures meet and the kids I have been working with swum unbelievably well. We had 10 kids ranging from 15 to 18 swimming and for most of the meet we sat in 3rd place in the team competition and we had several kids in the running for the high point on both the boys and girls events. We ended up coming up a little short last night(due to no men's relays), but ended the meet with a couple of 2nds in the meet high point awards and 4th overall as a team. We now have 8 kids qualified for winter junior nationals with several others very close. I have really enjoyed coaching and have learnt a lot working with Neil. I am hooked on continuing to work with the kids assuming I can continue to fit it in with my own swimming and work commitments.

The only big downside to the Futures meet was the time I got back to Dallas. Going to bed at 12:30am and waking up at 4:30am was tough and I suspect I will be dragging tonight. I am traveling all week this week and with the elbow injury it will be tough to swim everyday but I am planning on trying.

Today we had several visiting younger masters swimmers and normally I would have had fun swimming with them, but instead I kicked. My wife says I am not good when I am sick and I am obviously not good being injured!

I felt really tired during the warmup but by the main set was warmed up and felt ok. On the pyramid I was holding 1:15 pace. On the 50's without fins I was coming in on :50 and the final set with fins I was holding :36s; other than the first one these were all touch and go 50s.

Still chugging along. Doing less yardage than usual, but LCM is hard. The last of those AFAP 50s yesterday was tough.

Very excited that the Olympics are finally here! The doping scandals are a bit of a pall though. Aside from the Russians and some of the Chinese, it's scandalous that Brazil (a country with a ton of doping positives), didn't even drug test their athletes in the month before the Olympics. I'm sure the US has dopers too, but at least we have USADA. After they took down Armstrong, no one can doubt that it is a pitbull of any agency.

Have not really trained seriously for months. Practically all swimming accomplished over these 5 - 6 weeks has been done just for the pleasure of it. Tried to sprint a little yesterday, and it felt like nothing was there

That is my last workout at Pitt until Aug 31. Its a longer closure than usual due to construction of new varsity locker rooms. Too bad, its the coolest water around at the moment. I'm pretty beat from yesterday's double. Not sure what I will get up to today ...

I had a good night of sleep and woke up easily this morning. The plan last night was that both my kids would be coming to the gym this morning. As I suspected neither wanted to get up and despite me trying I lost the battle. I headed to the pool in my wife's car since I am heading to Austin from the pool for the Futures meet. As I pulled up at the pool I realized I had left the pool key on my cars key chain. Agghhh! I headed home and picked up the key but as a result was running about 30 minutes late today.

10mibs on stationary bike5x(5 X abs for :45 seconds, with :15 second transition) 1 minute between rounds. I used the 12lb medicine ball again and then did 1min straight on the last round

I had the meeting with the orthopedic surgeon yesterday and we did a contrast MRI. The outcome was a rip in the muscle and tendon on the interior medial epicondyle. I was given a cortisone shot and told that it should heal in 4-6 weeks if I back off use of the arm. My doctor said that about 20% of the time the ripped tendons require surgery and we have tentatively set a date in September to do this if needed. After the appointment I went home and looked at you tube videos of the procedure and OMG it looks awful. I am determined to back off and try to get it to heal naturally.

I had a restless night of sleep with work rattling around in my head, but got up and went to practice this morning. The pool was setup LCM and I did a LOT of kicking. I started out with a warmup doing one arm free which I think I will continue to do, but then kicked for about 45 minutes.

-- did yoga, core work and light weights for an hour
-- heading off to the last Team Pitt practice of August in another hour
-- it's going to be long course

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I'm thinking of heading to a last chance LCM meet on August 27: https://www.clubassistant.com/club/m...1236&smid=8088. I would swim the 50 free, 50 breast and possibly the 100 breast or 100 back. I'm definitely not in shape for long course 100s, so would only do that for fun. Although I'm not really sure how much "fun" the 100 back would be in an outdoor pool. Last time I did that I had a quite mediocre time.

Its been a busy few weeks. I have been swimming but my elbow and life has been conspiring against me. I see the orthopedic surgeon later today so I will know when I am getting scoped.

Last week my daughter had TAGS(Texas Age Group Champs) at the Northside ISD aquatic center and some of my senior group swam at the American Long Course meet in Lewisville. I obviously went with my daughter rather than my senior group but I was somewhat torn, since I have been working with these kids all year. Neil ended up going to Lewisville and with constant text messaging I managed to get through the meets. My daughter had a slower than anticipated start to the meet adding a few tenths on her 200IM and 50Back, just missing both B finals. On Saturday she swam her favorite event, the 2Back and crushed her entry time ending up going 2:30.4 in the A final and finishing 4th. On Sunday she swam the 100 back and again dropped big time going 1:12.1 and making the B final. She was very happy and I was very proud of my girl!

Unfortunately we did not get done with finals until about 8pm on Sunday and by the time I got back to Dallas it was after 1am. I was supposed to open the pool for masters but instead texted a friend who opened the pool and I slept until 7am. I have the next group of seniors swimming at the Futures meet in Austin next week followed by a smaller group going to Minneapolis for Jnr Nationals the week after. Work is also very hectic so trying to get everything done is a real challenge.

This morning my son and I did dry lands at the pool and then I did about a 3k swim:

15mins on stationary bike

5x(5 X abs for :45 seconds, with :15 second transition) 1 minute between rounds. I used the 12lb medicine ball again and then did 1min straight on the last round2x(3 X shoulder band exercises)
elbow exercises with bands